Eva Glesková

Eva Glesková (née Lehocká; born 26 July 1943) is a Slovak former track and field sprinter who specialised in the 100 metres. She represented Czechoslovakia three times at the Summer Olympics (1964, 1968, 1972) and twice at the European Athletics Championships (1966, 1969). She equalled the world record for the 100 m in 1972 with a manually-timed run of 11.0 seconds. She was twice a relay medallist at the European Indoor Games and a 13-time national champion in the individual sprints.

Career Born Eva Lehocká in Zvolen, Slovakia, she took up athletics at the age of fifteen, training with local coaches in Zvolen. She began to take the sport more seriously after a move to Bratislava, where she joined the Slávia STU club and worked with coach Antona Hajmássyho. She gained her first national title over 200 metres at the Czechoslovak Athletics Championships in 1962. She won that title three years running and in 1964 set championship records with a 100 m/200 m sprint double.

After missing the 1965 season she returned in 1966 with her first major international medal – a bronze in the relay alongside Libuše Macounová, Alena Hiltscherová and Eva Kucmanová. She regained her national title sprint double with new championship records of 11.7 and 24.1 seconds.

Her sole high-profile appearance the following season was the 1967 European Indoor Games in Prague, where she won a relay silver medal. She broke the European record for the electronically-timed 100 m with a run of 11.29 seconds at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, though this was not ratified as a record as Irena Kirszenstein's manually-timed 11.1 remained superior. At the Olympics she was a 100 m semi-finalist but was eliminated in the first round of the 200 m. She remains the only Slovak woman to have equalled a world record in athletics. The 1972 Summer Olympics was the last major outing for her and she reached the final, although an injury sustained in the semi-final meant she finished last in the event final and subsequently retired at age 29. 100 metres: 1964, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1972 200 metres: 1962, 1963, 1964, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1972